Stylos is the blog of Jeff Riddle, a Reformed Baptist Pastor in North Garden, Virginia. The title "Stylos" is the Greek word for pillar. In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul urges his readers to consider "how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar (stylos) and ground of the truth."

Thursday, August 01, 2013

The Vision (8/1/13): Putting away bitterness

When Llewellyn and I moved to Virginia in 1992 after serving
a two year term as missionaries in Hungary we had little more than a pair of
suitcases and a few things we had stored with Llewellyn’s parents. We had sold or given away most of the meager
furnishing from our seminary apartment to lighten our load before moving to
Budapest. As we moved into the parsonage
of the church that had called me to be their pastor, the folk who came to help
us looked incredulous that there really wasn’t that much to help with.

One of the first things we realized we needed was a table and
some chairs (lest we sit and eat on the floor), so we went to a local
unfinished furniture store and bought an oak table with four matching chairs which
we promptly brought home and finished.
As I write this article my computer is lying on that same table, which
also now doubles as my study desk. It is
hard to tell just how many meals our family has shared around this table and
how many friends, family, and guests have joined us here (not to mention how
many bog posts, articles, and sermons have been composed here). We had to go out and buy three more chairs as
our family grew from the two of us to add five children.

The table definitely has picked up some nicks and scratches over
the last twenty plus years (nothing a good table cloth won’t hide). Most telling is a deep black stain, sunk into
the grain of the wood, with a wide crack on the same stained side. How did that get there? One summer about five years after we got the
table, we were preparing to leave for a two week vacation to the Grand Tetons
in Wyoming with Llewellyn’s family (it was a great trip). Just before we left, a neighbor brought us a
bag of tomatoes from his garden. The church
we served was in a rural setting, and we had no lack of vegetables from the
members’ gardens. The joke was that when
you went into church you needed to lock your doors lest when you returned the
seats be filled with corn, squash, and beans.
Anyhow, we ended up leaving for our vacation and leaving that plastic bag
of tomatoes sitting on the oak table.

The moment we opened our door two weeks later, we knew
(smelled) that something was wrong. The acidic
tomatoes had rotted, leaked, cracked, and permanently stained the table. Our younger children probably now think this
is the way all kitchen tables are supposed to be.

As I sit at that table this evening looking at that
stain, I am reminded of what the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:31-32: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye
kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for
Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” If we
allow bitterness to remain in our hearts, it will act like that bag of
tomatoes. It will fester, rot, ooze,
crack, spoil, and stain. This is why
Paul told the Ephesians to put away all bitterness and instead to respond with
kindness and forgiveness. Do you have
bitterness in your heart? Has it been
there for years or is it of recent origin?
Does it relate to broken relationships, unrealized hopes and expectations,
disappointments, disability, unkind treatment?
May the Lord grant us the grace to put bitterness away and to live
wholesome, healthy, and godly lives for Christ.